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Bird flu in Bengal Modi’s sidekick |
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Canals of despair Protect water resources POLITICIANS in Punjab spend more energy and time on fighting over the river waters with the neighbouring states than on making efforts to conserve water or maintain the existing water resources. The canal network has been in total neglect for a long time.
Degeneration of Indian politics
Bonds that count
Getting it wrong on the ‘French turban’ Bobby Fischer,
‘the pride and sorrow of chess’ Delhi Durbar
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Bird flu in Bengal THE customary inertia of the government had much to do with the outbreak of bird flu in West Bengal. It was expected that the administration would wake up at least after the dangerous pandemic had manifested itself in two districts. Alas, even that did not shake up the sleeping beauties enough. Thanks to delayed action, bad planning and gross mismanagement, it has been spreading like the proverbial wild fire and nearly half of West Bengal is now in its grip. Not only that, it is also suspected to have spread to neighbouring Bihar and Jharkhand. Still, things are moving on at a leisurely pace. If one district does not have personal protection gear for rapid response teams, the other has yet to get money for compensating poultry owners whose chickens have to be culled. The result is that instead of looking forward to the government agencies’ help in getting rid of the infected birds, many people are resisting their culling. The danger that this lack of information poses is obvious. This is the fastest spread of bird flu in the country till date. If the 2006 outbreak was confined to two districts of Maharashtra, the 2007 attack affected only one district in Manipur. What is even more alarming is the apprehension that it may shift from birds to animals. The death of more than 40 pigs in Birbhum district under mysterious circumstances needs to be viewed with urgency. Unconfirmed reports even talk of a person having contracted the dreaded H5NI virus. He was working at a poultry farm in Naxalbari where a large number of poultry birds died. While the deadly virus wipes out chicken, it is not quite so dangerous for human beings, considering that there have been only a handful of deaths in the world because of this phenomenon. The H5NI virus is not able to spread and sustain itself very well among humans. But it could acquire that ability through mutation or by swapping genes with a human-adapted flu virus. That eventuality will become a distinct possibility if the battle against its spread continues to be fought in such a perfunctory manner.
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Modi’s sidekick GUJARAT Chief Minister Narendra Modi has committed a grave blunder by reinstating P.C. Pande, a tainted IPS officer, as the Director-General of Police. A 1971 batch officer, he stands for all that is antithetical to the IPS. The Supreme Court and the Election Commission had taken serious exception to his role during the Gujarat riots in 2002, the infamous fake encounter case of Sohrabuddin involving three IPS officers and his overall professional unsuitability to be the DGP. During the recent Gujarat elections, the Election Commission had ordered his removal from the post of DGP. With him as the state police chief, it would be difficult for the authorities to hold free and fair elections, the commission had said. Mr Pande’s role as the Police Commissioner of Ahmedabad during the riots is one of the darkest chapters in the history of the Indian police. He had done little to contain the post-Godhra riots that erupted in the city. Nothing illustrates his role better than his own statement during the riots that “the police were not insulated from the general social milieu” and that “when there is a change in the perception of society, the police are part of it and there is bound to be some contagion effect.” Worse, when he joined the CBI on promotion in 2004, the Union government had to comply with the Supreme Court’s directive to shift him from the CBI to ensure that he had absolutely no connection with the investigation pertaining to the post-Godhra riots. True, a chief minister has every right to pick and choose top bureaucrats like the chief secretary and the DGP. But how can Mr Modi select a person who is tainted to the core, who has the least respect for the rule of law and constitutional principles, and who had invited strictures from the Supreme Court and the Election Commission? What message will it send down the line? Having got a fresh mandate, Mr Modi should have started at least his second innings with a clean slate by selecting for top posts bureaucrats known for their uprightness, acumen and integrity. Clearly, Mr Modi has frittered away this opportunity by reverting to his dubious ways of decision-making and governance. |
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Canals of despair POLITICIANS in Punjab spend more energy and time on fighting over the river waters with the neighbouring states than on making efforts to conserve water or maintain the existing water resources. The canal network has been in total neglect for a long time. As a result, the canals now irrigate only about 28 per cent of the area under agriculture, sharply down from 42 per cent in 1990-91. There has been a decline in the availability of water and a considerable part of what is available is lost as canals and rivers have not been maintained properly for years. The quality of water, too, has gone down as industrial waste and chemicals used in the fields flow unchecked into canals and rivers. The demand for irrigation water has gone up due to the increased paddy cultivation. As canals carry less water, farmers have dug up more and more tubewells, raising their dependence on electricity, diesel and ground water. As a result, the ground water level falls 24-25 cms in Punjab every year and farmers are forced to go in for deeper tubewells. This has raised their cost of production and made agriculture unviable. Instead of addressing the issue, the state government has aggravated the crisis by giving free canal water and power. Due to the non-levy of user-charges, the maintenance of water and power supply has suffered. Besides, the populist policies have denied Punjab access to cheap credit from the World Bank and other agencies to strengthen its irrigation network. Lately, the state government has come out with a Rs 3,243-crore project to control floods, check water-logging and recharge ground water. But it is still not enough. There is a need for a mass movement to conserve rainwater, clean up the canals and rivers and encourage the use of the sprinkler and drip irrigation system. |
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Big words seldom accompany good deeds. — Charlotte Whitton
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Degeneration of Indian politics
WITH an audible sigh of relief, and in the presence of several Congress leaders, the Nationalist Congress Party has announced that the crisis in the Congress-led coalition in Goa, caused by the resignation from the ministry of three NCP and an Independent ministers, has “blown over”. Union Civil Aviation Minister Praful Patel, the NCP’s trouble-shooter in the tiny state, has also declared emphatically that the Congress-led ruling coalition, headed by Chief Minister Digambar Kamat, is “safe”. However, the question is: for how long? After all, it was the second “nearly fatal”, politically speaking, upheaval in the Goa coalition in just seven months. Moreover, the crisis has been resolved at a rather heavy price. The “rebels” have got their pound of flesh in the form of reallocation of prized portfolios to their satisfaction and the formation of a “coordination committee” of the coalition partners. The dreary details of the bargain are of little consequence. What matters is the dismal fact that Goa, one of the smallest states and the newest member of the Indian family (until December 1961 it was under the occupation of Portugal), has become the microcosm of everything that has gone wrong with the Indian polity — fragmentation, factionalism, shifting loyalties, rampant corruption, uneasy coalitions and unending political instability. Indeed, the way things are going, Goa might soon start setting the pace for the rest of the country, rather than the other way round. There are four very disturbing implications of the Goa goings-on. The first is that the main purpose of most — perhaps almost all — politicians, irrespective of party affiliations, is to win an election by hook or by crook, to somehow get a finger into the power pie and then make as much hay as possible while the sun shines. This leads one to the second point — that, in an increasing number of cases, the sun does not shine for long. For, in an era when coalitions have become inescapable but there is no coalition culture, things are bound to fall apart sooner rather than later. Even in relatively balanced coalitions in various parts of the country, pathetically small groups and splinters having only a marginal membership in the legislature have gleefully held various governments to ransom. Goa is a delight for such elements because in the 40-member assembly, the Congress has only 16 seats and the rival BJP 14. With the help of the three members of the NCP and an Independent — Mr Vishwajit Rane, a son of Assembly Speaker and former Congress Chief Minister Pratapsingh Rane — the Congress-led ministry has acquired a wafer-thin majority. Two other small parties, the Maharashtra Gomantak Party and the Save Goa Front, which have two members each, add a little more ballast to this. But this time around these parties had little role because the resignations of three NCP ministers and Mr Vishwajit Rane were enough to bring down the ministry. The third steadily escalating factor perverting Indian politics is a combination of rampant corruption and virtually insatiable greed. Not to put any gloss on an extremely ugly state of affairs we have got to face it that relentless politicisation of the police and investigating agencies, shameful permissiveness of the top leadership of practically every party, the so-called compulsions of coalition politics and appalling judicial delays give the wrong-doers a free run. There was no dearth of the gift of the grab during the days of single-party governments. But opportunistic and messy coalitions have become unabashed perpetrators of unbridled loot. Their uncertainty about the durability of the opportunity only whets their appetite. It is no mere coincidence that the talk about the Kamat ministry’s “imminent collapse” started immediately after all the 15 Special Economic Zones (SEZs) notified in Goa were scrapped at the state government’s behest. A majority of the people of Goa may be opposed to these special zones on various grounds, including land grab and a threat to the environment. But powerful vested interests, insistent on SEZs, are at work and the number of politicos having a high stake in them is not negligible. The state of affairs is no different from that in Karnataka where the late unlamented coalition between the Deve Gowda family and the BJP won a place in history by making astounding allegations of corruption against each other. The fourth aspect of the Goa crisis is most deplorable, indeed disgraceful. Once again, a former Congress Chief Minister of Nagaland, Mr S. C. Jamir, now holding the exalted office of Governor of Goa, has acted in a partisan manner that is a flagrant violation of constitutional norms and proprieties, to say nothing of political decencies. At a time when the Kamat ministry was clearly in a minority and the state assembly’s session to discuss and pass the appropriation Bill was on, the Governor accepted the ministry’s recommendation to prorogue the House when the option of adjourning it sine die was open. The obvious motive behind this murky move was to take away the calling of the next session from the purview of the Speaker. Indeed, the session in which the Congress-led coalition can be challenged again can now be delayed for months. However, in all fairness, it must be acknowledged that Speaker Rane is no angel. Seven months ago he had come to the aid of the tottering Kamat ministry in a manner as malodorous as that adopted by Governor Jamir now. Mr Rane then bent every rule of business and all relevant provisions of the Constitution to save the ministry. The sheer brazenness of Mr Jamir on this occasion is shocking beyond words. A long time ago, in the famous Bommai case, the Supreme Court had taken the Governors to task for acting as agents of the ruling party or coalition at the Centre instead of being, as they should be, constitutional heads of the state to which they are appointed, and act impartially and in accordance with the letter and spirit of the Constitution. More recently, the apex court held as unconstitutional the abrupt dissolution of the Bihar Assembly and imposition of President’s rule. The court also passed strictures on the conduct of the then Bihar Governor, Mr Buta Singh, who was forced to resign. Mr Jamir deserves the same treatment. Moreover, the Prime Minister and the Congress president need to tell the country whether the Goa Governor acted in consultation with them, and if he didn’t what action they propose to take against
him.
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Bonds that count
Numbers have never fascinated me. The only time my eyes light up on seeing them is when I am reading one of those numerological readings. Even the monthly pay slip holds little charm as its slow pace could undoubtedly test the patience of a snail. Probably, it was this realisation that made me look beyond fixed deposits, which are safe but again, sadly, slower than the snail. It wasn’t easy to shed the “cent per cent safe” mindset for the tempting but tumultuous waters of the stock market. I tried to draw comfort from present-day credos — more the risk, greater the chances of gain; it’s unsafe to play safe; consistency is no longer a virtue. What’s more, “living for the present” has become passé. The latest demands “living for the best”. It calls for changing jobs, till you can get more and more. And, the rate at which marriages are coming apart, you could probably say the same for relationships too. It was the fear of not getting caught in this rat race that made me do a thumbs-up for “good stocks” and not remain saddled with 8 per cent all my life. Now came the dreadful bit — where to start. There was the intimidating de-mat account to open. My father swore by the friendly neighbourhood broker, while my brother-in-law couldn’t stop raving about the advantages of e-broking. Then there came a string of other doubt-creators and delay-causers in the shape of: “First get that CD on trading…it will familiarise you with the subject”; “keep tuned in to business news.” The cut-off point came for me when somebody said, “Always be one up on biz news. You should be able to read the fine print that comes with political developments.” Whoosh, this was certainly more than I could taste, let alone chew. Finally, the matter rested at the so-called safe IPOs. But, as luck would have it, the first share that I applied for was oversubscribed a record number of times! By this time acquiring a bullish craving for instant gains, I chose the second best and decidedly safer option — mutual funds. Why, even the postmaster had recommended them and generously handed me a couple of application forms. Again equipped with no information about rewarding funds, I was flooded with advice from all quarters: family, friends, and colleagues. Even my family doctor, heavily into shares, gave a prescription of names to stand me in good stead. Armed with a long, confusing list of companies, I randomly made the final pick. A dear friend, also a new entrant to the market, promptly opened my portfolio on the Net. Seeing my disappointment at more red readings (losses) than green, she brushed these aside as entry loads and asked me to have patience and wait for a year to see noticeable gains. Life comes full circle more often than nought, doesn’t it? Patience, the virtue of the snail, surely counts in the rat race
too.
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Getting it wrong on the ‘French turban’ THE French law that affected the Sikh turban bans ostentatious signs of religion. Three questions arise: Is the turban essential to Sikhs? Yes. Can one community be exempted as ‘special’ from a common law, by any government? Almost never. That leaves only one option. Does the law really apply? The law banning religious items in French State institutions was first established in 1905, separating the secular State from any association with religion. All visible signs of religion were stripped from the walls of State institutions including State schools. The clergy, including nuns in State Schools, were required to wear non-clerical clothes. This law was a development of the legendry French Revolution and its subsequent preference for secularism and human rights. Rigid secularism mostly evolved as a reaction against the bloody and protracted conflicts between Catholic and Protestant in which millions died. Moreover, the Church often collaborated with monarchies. Robespierre’s infamous reign of terror did not spare the Church, stripping it of power. Even out of power, the Catholic and Protestant institutions continued to compete insidiously in State institutions, often accusing the government of being partial to the other. A weary State disassociated itself completely from any religion. Hence the 1905 law. A deep suspicion of institutional religion as a predatory, oppressive and reactionary force is embedded in the French psyche. Muslim migrations in the twentieth century brought new challenges, as some Muslim girls wore Hijab as a religious requirement. The French State system allows Schools some local desertions. However the number of Hijab wearing girls increased exponentially, with increasingly politicised Islamic movements, after 2001, and were down French tolerance. Sarkozy, who is President now, was the interior Minister who precipitated reaction. Citing 1905 Laicite he stressed that standards had fallen. New provisions were proposed. Not to be accused of targeting Muslims, the proposed law mentioned the Hijab, the Jewish Yumlka and the large Christian Cross as ostentatious signs. Neither the Jews nor the Christians were practically affected as both had long established private institutions. For some reason the turban was not mentioned. Nevertheless, some Sikh groups raised a public alarm despite being advised to hold discreet talks first with the French government. By going public they exposed the issue to media hacks who challenged the French Government. The government responded that it was an oversight and the law would affect turbans! The first damage was done. I was contacted by concerned Sikhs in France. Through my contact with the French Human Rights Ambassador to the UN, I was able to organise a number of meetings with high profile officials in the French Prime Minister’s office, the Ministry of Interior, the External Affairs Ministry and the Education Ministry. Finally there was a meeting with the French Education Minister. The dialogues opened up possibilities of resolving the issue. With a crash course on the French constitution, its political history and philosophy, I felt the best line was to suggest that the law does not apply to the Sikhs. My argument was that working definition of the words ‘ostentatious’ and ‘religion’ as implied in the law are inconsistent with the Sikh practice of wearing turbans. The French concept of religion was rooted in European Christian doctrinal history, as a proscriptive and exclusivist institution interfering with human freedoms, intolerant of non-believers and other beliefs and is forever seeking to ‘save souls’ through conversion. The French position was that an ostentatious sign of religion is a form of propaganda to encourage others to engage in a dialogue and subtly covert! The French State saw it as its human rights obligation to protect the rights of its atheist pupils not be exposed to religious propaganda of any form. Clearly this was diametrically opposite to Sikh beliefs and history as well as the significance of the turban. It does not make legal or administrative sense to argue that the world religion be understood differentially for different religions. The best line was that the turban was incommensurate with the words ostentatious and religion as comprehended by the French State. I strengthened the argument with facts. Over 90 per cent of Sikhs who wear turbans are not ‘baptised’ in the formal sense. If they are not even totally committed to their ‘religion’ as the French understand, whey would they start converting others? On the other hand, a lady with a Hijab, a Jew with a Yumlka or a Christian with large cross is consciously stating that he or she is fully committed to their religion. Secondly, one never sees any of these people voluntarily present in places where the deeply religious do not venture. But you can see non-baptised turban-wearing Sikhs in all venues of social life, including pubs, dance halls etc. Furthermore these, there are famous people like the agnostic Kushwant Singh and the atheist Harkishan Singh Surjit who are Sikhs. If the French working definition of turban as an ostentatious religious sign was used we would have to ask these people to remove their turbans or change habits, in other words the large majority of Sikhs. The inconsistency between the French understanding of a religious item and the Sikh practice of wearing turban was evident. The law also sought people to ‘conceal’ their signs of religion. If there is a religious requirement among the five K’s it is unshorn hari, (Kesh). The turban conceals it. Surely were are getting into paradoxes now. Lue Ferry, the then French Education Minister, a professor of philosophy, appreciated the inconsistencies. He said that an exception could not be made but the argument of inapplicability put forward could be considered to find a way forward. He suggested that a discrete form of urban, i.e. a Keski type, be worn for some time until matters settled. The ministry also agreed to send circulars explaining the inconsistencies. Unfortunately, many Sikhs groups and individuals started their own campaigns, sending letters stating that the turban was an essential item of Sikh identity and religion and an ‘exception’ had to be made! While details were being sorted with officials, the letters and phone calls increased. French Government officials were in a quandary and started to backtrack. They said to me that clearly there are two interpretations of the turban and it is not the responsibility of the French Government to either arbitrate or chose one. There is no provision for a separate cultural of ethnic identity entertained in France. The formal circular as an official position was dropped but they agreed to verbally explain to concerned schools. A battle won was slipping. More was to come. At the height of France-US tension over Iraq, many Sikhs lobbied United States senators and Congressmen for support. The Congressmen wrote gloating letters reminding the French of their obligation to freedom of religion and human rights! Matters went downhill fast and French officials lost the will to help the Sikh community. It is testament of the first generation of Sikh migrants from villages to the west that they protected the turban through pragmatic solutions. The right to wear the turban in UK was no won as a religious right, but as the right of an ethnic community, in the famous House of Lords Mandla decision in 1984. It is a sad indictment of the current young leaders among Sikhs that not only have they failed to improve on the diplomatic and political skills of their parent, but they have in fact become more fundamentalist and unrealistic. The issue can still be resolved if mature and diplomatic minds took charge of the issue. Whatever one may say about the French, they are a reasonable people who will concede when an argument is rational.
The writer is Director, Sikh Human Rights Group, Southall Middlesex, United Kingdom |
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Bobby Fischer,
‘the pride and sorrow of chess’ Bobby
Fischer, who died a melancholy exile’s death last week at age 64, was
that most perplexing of human characters – a protean genius and a repellent
man. He was to American chess what Ezra Pound was to American poetry. When he went to Reykjavik, Iceland, to play Russian grandmaster Boris Spassky for the world championship, the 29-year-old Fischer was everything an American hero was supposed to be: the son of a hardworking single mother, a self-made grandmaster who had taught himself the game from the instructions that came with a chess set purchased in the candy store downstairs from his Brooklyn apartment. Spassky was a quintessential representative of the vast Soviet chess establishment, which included institutes devoted to the study of the game and that treated its successful players as national heroes. He arrived in Iceland as the reigning world champion, accompanied by physical therapists, chefs, a tennis partner and dozens of coaches and grandmasters to help him analyze Fischer’s every move. The notoriously eccentric Fischer – whose antipathy toward the Soviets was storied – skipped the opening ceremony and had to be coaxed back into playing at all by a phone call from Henry Kissinger, who appealed to his patriotism. Fischer lost the first two games, then went on to crush Spassky in a match that ushered in a new global enthusiasm for chess. It was a high-water mark for both Fischer and the illusion that sports could somehow become a nonviolent venue into which the competition between the world’s political systems could be channeled. Shortly afterward, Palestinian terrorists kidnapped and killed Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics, and that illusion was dead forever. Fischer gave up his title without ever defending it. Most of his remaining years were given over to crank religiosity and paranoid bigotry. Despite the fact that his mother and, probably, his biological father were Jews, Fischer became a Holocaust denier and an ever more virulent anti-Semite. He lived for many years in a series of increasingly shabby Pasadena, Calif., apartments and hotel rooms near his church’s headquarters. In 1981, he was arrested there because he matched a bank robber’s description and refused to give police his name. In 1992, Fischer became a fugitive from U.S. justice when he violated the embargo against Serbia to play his only post-Reykjavik match – a shabby rematch with the has-been Spassky. On the run, he made more viciously anti-Semitic and anti-American radio broadcasts, ended up under arrest in Japan and finally was granted citizenship and refuge back in Iceland, where he died. The British grandmaster Raymond Keene said last week that Fischer “was the pride and sorrow of chess. It’s tragic that such a great man descended into madness and anti-Semitism.” Yet even within that unquestionable greatness, there is a strange, sad solitude. Most great chess players have an encyclopedic knowledge of their sport’s historic matches. Over the years, several of the accomplished players who worked with Fischer expressed surprise that he had a precise memory only of the matches he’d played himself. His 1969 book is considered one of the true classics in the vast literature of chess. Its title? My 60 Memorable Games. Fischer’s contributions to chess theory are original and numerous. Oddly, though, those remarkable innovations almost all involve openings. Though he was a player so consumed with winning that his disdain for even a strategic draw was legendary, only a single endgame bears Fischer’s name. Although his sixth game against Spassky in 1972 has been compared to a Mozart symphony, many analysts believe that his greatest game was in 1956, when the then-13-year-old prodigy defeated Donald Byrne, a leading U.S. chess player, with a breathtakingly audacious queen sacrifice. Fischer would go on to sacrifice nearly everything that makes life – however imperfect – worth living: family, friends, faith, country, a decent regard for other people and, finally, reason itself. Idiosyncrasy became eccentricity, and eccentricity became ordinary madness. In the end, as the darkness gathered, there was no one left around him willing or able to strike a consoling light. When you willfully set the board like that, the outcome seems preordained. The 20th century’s great anti-heroic bard, Samuel Beckett, wrote Bobby Fischer’s epitaph: “There is no endgame between a man and his fate.”
By arrangement with
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Delhi Durbar Union Commerce Minister Kamal Nath is known for his media-friendly approach, but the India-UK CEOs had other ideas. Consequently, it proved to be highly embarassing for the mediapersons. At the Round Table of the India-UK CEOs in the national capital, as usual Kamal Nath, as the chief guest, was keen on the media covering the event. Promptly, invitations were sent to the media. However, when the mediapersons reached the venue, the organisers turned them away saying the industrialists wanted to have a "free and fair" interaction with the minister far from the gaze of the media. As the agitated mediapersons trooped out, Kamal Nath cut short his presence at the meeting.
‘Unified proposal’ The issue of conscription (compulsory military service) continues to dog Defence Minister A K Antony. After having clarified a few days ago that there was no question of conscription as of now, the Defence Minister was again asked about the shortage of officers in the armed forces during the National bravery Award. This time however, the Defence Minister opined that in today's scenario youngsters had many options and the pay packet was much better in other fields. However, to make a case for the armed forces, he pointed out that for the first time the forces had also put their best foot forward by presenting a unified proposal to the sixth Pay Commission, which includes a better pay packet and perks.
Quiet deal The Indo-US nuclear deal seems to be off the political radar for some weeks, particularly after the results of the Gujarat Assembly polls. With negotiations under way on the safeguards at the IAEA in Vienna, neither the Left nor the Congress are indulging in any brave talk on the issue. Asked about the controversial deal during the release of the draft political resolution of the party, CPI(M) general secretary said in lighter vein that he was tired of answering questions on the subject. However, he added that the government was to come back to the UPA-Left committee on the outcome of the IAEA talks and the deal was not going forward anywhere.
Post-poll regrets Even though some leaders of the Congress in the capital now say that they were not expecting a win in the Himachal Pradesh assembly polls, the leaders from the state have their many regrets. They say there were at least 10 seats where the choice of the candidate was wrong. With the resignation of PCC chief Viplove Thakur, several leaders from the lower areas of the state have started sending feelers about their desire to don the mantle. While former ministers Kaul Singh and Chander Kumar are seen as contenders, Nagrota MLA G S Bali also seems interested in the job. The high command is apparently in no great hurry to make a change.
Contributed by S. Satyanarayanan, Girja Shankar Kaura and Prashant Sood
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Nearly four decades ago, in the summer of 1972, Fischer was something more – a participant in what then seemed to be the ultimate contest between American individualism and Soviet collectivism.